1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the field of electronic commerce. More particularly, the present invention relates to methods and systems for sharing an online shopping cart among designated persons while selectively limiting the actions such persons may take with the shared cart.
2. Description of the Related Art
The shopping cart metaphor has been widely adopted on the World Wide Web (hereafter “Web”) as a conceptual and graphical device to allow customers to select and gather items for later purchase. The customer typically selects items for purchase on a Web site, places the items in his or her shopping cart. The shopping cart typically maintains a running total of the items kept therein. The customer may add or subtract the items in his or her shopping cart prior to “checking out” and concluding the transaction. To conclude the transaction, the user may provide the online vendor with billing, shipping and payment instrument information and may authorize the vendor to charge the designated payment instrument (such as the user's credit card, for example). Recognizing that customers may not want to conclude their purchase immediately, vendors often allow the customer to save his or her shopping cart for a predetermined period of time. The customer may then retrieve the saved cart at some later time, after providing the vendor with proper identification. The saved cart may then be cancelled or changed at will. When the customer is ready to conclude their purchase, he or she may proceed to check out, in the same manner described above.
Such a mechanism is reasonably well suited to the consumer retail market, where there is typically one customer selecting and purchasing the items. However, in the business-to-business market, such a mechanism lacks essential functionality. Indeed, when purchasing items for a corporation or other organization, it is often necessary to allow others within the organization to review or approve a purchase request. Therefore, it is often useful to allow others to add or subtract items placed in the shopping cart prior to placing the order for the items listed in the shopping cart. However, while it may be useful to allow others to share a shopping cart, not all persons with whom the cart is shared may have or should be given the authority to make changes to the cart or to proceed to check out and conclude the purchase. Currently, however, no mechanism is believed to be available for conveniently sharing a shopping cart with other persons while maintaining control over the actions such other persons make take with regard to the contents of the cart. For example, it may be useful to allow one person with whom the cart is shared to comment on the items included therein while selectively allowing others to make changes and/or to conclude the purchase.
What are needed, therefore, are methods and systems for sharing an online shopping cart over a computer network such as the Internet. More particularly, what are needed are methods and systems that enable a person having created the shopping cart to share the cart with other persons while controlling the actions such other persons may take with respect thereto.